To The Moon With LOX & Methane, Says ATK

The ascent engine is a critical propulsion system on the Lunar Lander. Its operation is required to return the astronauts from the lunar surface to rendezvous with the orbiting Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). To that end, a LOX/Methane propellant combo offers significant performance benefits over other propellant combinations, due to its lighter weight and increased safety margins for the Lunar Lander’s design, in terms of allowable weight of the ascent module. And so says Alliant Techsystems [NYSE:ATK], as the company has just recently demo’d a critical capability of its liquid oxygen (LOX)/Methane rocket engine by igniting it in a vacuum changer. This successful test was designed to demonstrate the viability of this rocket engine for a lunar ascent engine.



ATK will conduct additional tests of its LOX/Methane engine technology over a wide range of operating conditions to simulate the environments an operational engine must perform within during a lunar ascent. The data collected from this test series will be instrumental in determining performance parameters and optimal scale of a flight-weight LOX/Methane engine. These tests will be conducted at the company’s test facility in Ronkonkoma, New York